Food, family and memories are as intertwined in the South as if woven on the same thread. At any function we attend, from a party to a wedding to a funeral, we are as likely to talk as much about the food that was there, as we are about why we are gathered. ~Mary Foreman

I'm your cook, not your doctor. ~PAULA DEEN

I found out what the secret to life is: friends. Best friends. ~Ninny Threadgoode

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Decorator Cut Out Sugar Cookies

Decorator cut out cookies used to scare me. I mean look at them! They just look hard, don't they? Well, I did it! And somehow I managed to squeeze it into the past two days of craziness. And yay, I got them done before Christmas Day too, despite the fact that I only decided to do them on Monday. I'm talking about decorating all those Christmas cookie cut outs that I rolled and baked the other day of course. I think they came out very nice, don't you? And ya know... it was really fun to do!

I can't believe I ever let a little royal icing and some decorating tools intimidate me all these years. I really enjoyed this entire process. This recipe will be perfect for making cut out cookies any time of the year and for any occasion. All you need are the cookie cutters!

I don't know about elsewhere in the world, but you would never know there was a recession at our local WalMart because I've been there several times over the last 2 days and that place was ALL abuzz! The mall too. And since I'm getting ready to gather myself to get my dishes ready for the big day tomorrow, there's a high probability that I'll be back out there again today! Actually, all the buzz and excitement really lifted my spirits yesterday and while it was crowded and the waits were long, it finally felt like Christmas and I didn't mind at all!

I really like this recipe and as you see, it makes quite a few cookies. Now once you get all that royal icing flooded in, it is a goodly bit of major sweetness, but I guess that's probably a good thing cuz it'll keep ya from eating a boatload of 'em all at once! I hope that you give cookie crafting a try too. Merry Christmas!

Instructions Measure the flour into a large bowl. Add the baking powder and salt and whisk together, mixing well. Set aside.

Cream the butter. Add the sugar and mix on high speed until fluffy, about 5 minutes. Reduce the speed, add the eggs one at a time and blend. Add the vanilla and mix. Increase speed slightly and begin adding the flour mixture at about 1/2 cup at a time until fully incorporated.

Lay out a sheet of parchment paper. Separate the dough in 4 balls. Place one ball on the parchment and flatten into a disc. Cover with another sheet of parchment paper and roll out to desired thickness. Two wooden slats placed on top of the parchment paper at each side of the dough work well to keep a uniform thickness when rolling the rolling pin across the slats. Place the dough in the parchment paper on a cookie sheet and repeat until all dough balls have been rolled out, stacking them on top of each other. Refrigerate for a minimum of 10 minutes. If refrigerating for an extended period of time, wrap the entire cookie sheet with plastic wrap to protect the dough from drying out.

When ready to bake, pull one parchment section out at a time and cut out desired shapes. Carefully transfer cut outs to a cookie sheet and place in the refrigerator to chill for another 10 minutes. This will help the cookies to retain their shapes. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Once cookies have chilled, pull the tray out of the refrigerator and bake cookies for about 8 to 10 minutes.

Gather all of the cut-out scraps together at once, squish and ball them up well, flatten into a disk and roll them out again between the sheets of parchment; place into refrigerator to chill and once chilled, cut out shapes and discard any remaining dough. If you reuse the dough too much, your cookies might just crumble up and you don't want to chance that!

Once cooked, let the cookies rest on the pan for a few minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely. Decorate with Royal Icing if you intend to stack these cookies in more than one layer. I put my finished decorated cookies on the cooling racks and then stack the racks in the oven, letting them dry completely overnight - if you do this, just be sure to tape a big ole sign to the front of your oven to warn others NOT to turn the oven on! If there is any moisture left in the icing when you seal them in a container, it will cause your cookies to soften and break apart. Store temporarily in a covered container, but I find that down south where we don't much have a winter and we do have a lot of humidity, they do best on trays, kept right on that holiday sweets table, in just a layer or two and covered with plastic wrap. This seems to help to keep them drier than sealing them in a container.

Royal Icing

Plan to use a 1/2 pound recipe of piping royal icing and a 1-pound recipe of flood royal icing to pipe, flood and detail 2 to 3 batches of rolled sugar cookies.

For Piping

2 cups (1/2 pound) powdered sugar

4 teaspoons meringue powder

3 tablespoons warm water (approximately, may need slightly more)

1 tablespoon lemon juice OR 1/2 to 1 teaspoon vanilla or other extract

4 cups (1 pound) powdered sugar

3 tablespoons meringue powder

6 tablespoons warm water (approximately, may need slightly less or more)

2 tablespoon lemon juice OR 1 to 2 teaspoon vanilla or other extract

For Flooding

2 cups (1/2 pound) powdered sugar

4 teaspoons meringue powder

6 tablespoons warm water (approximately, may need slightly more)

1 tablespoon lemon juice OR 1/2 to 1 teaspoon vanilla or other extract

4 cups (1 pound) powdered sugar

3 tablespoons meringue powder

12 tablespoons warm water (approximately, may need slightly less or more)

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Hi Diana! Thanks!! I brought half of these to our Christmas dinner/party and got a lot of compliments about them, both for the taste and for the decorating. Really it wasn't that hard - just took some planning and some time and they really are good!

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